David J. Epstein Program in Public Interest Law and Policy

April 8, 2016 – Professor Noah Zatz published an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times in which he argues that today’s criminal justice system creates debtor prisons by sending the poorest citizens to jail for non-payment of tickets for quality-of-life offenses, punishing them even at the expense of their food, housing or other basic needs.

“So what’s the problem?” Professor Zatz asks. “The crucial point is that incarceration remains the consequence for not working to the court’s satisfaction.”